Career
Distin arrived in the Cape in 1846 when his family"s ship was sailing past on its return from New Zealand. He jumped overboard from his ship and swam ashore in Table Bay. He found work as a soldier and then as a trader of the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony.
He later became a farmer in Hantam, in the Middelburg District, Eastern Cape in the 1860s, and made his fortune in Ostrich farming.
With his new fortune he built up his estate, Tafelberg Hall. He was notable in the 1860s for his liberal and inclusive policies, and for his support of humane measures (together with William Porter) such as opposition to the death penalty.
He was also one of the first of a group of Eastern Province MPs who converted to the movement for democratic self-rule (or "Responsible Government") in the Cape Colony, and he fought for it up until it was introduced in 1872. Distin"s blunt and informal language in the General Assembly made him relatively famous during this period.
In parliament Distin was described as a small man, with a most characterful nose and accent.
But also with a most genial and straight-forward personality, "rough-and-ready" and friendly.
